Day 11: Joburg to Graskop

Today we left Joburg and arrived in Graskop, Mpumalanga.  Before leaving Joburg, Margarett, the owner of the B&B we stayed at, left us with some words of wisdom for our visit to Kruger National Park.  Check out the video to see her advice:

Anyways, Graskop is a quaint little town on the edge of the Highveld.  Check out what www.graskop.co.za/ has to say:

"Graskop is a small forestry town perched on the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment, centrally situated in the Panorama tourist region of Mpumalanga, South Africa.
Graskop is only a few minutes drive from a number of scenic wonders such as God's Window, Bourke's Luck Potholes and the world renown Blyde River Canyon and Three Rondawels, as well as spectacular waterfalls such as Lisbon Falls, Berlyn Falls and Mac Mac Falls.
The historic mining town of Pilgrim's Rest as well as the quaint forestry town of Sabie are a mere ½ hour's drive away, with the Lowveld and the Kruger National Park less than an hours drive to the east.Graskop, at an altitude of 1,400 m above sea level, has a temperate climate with a high rainfall and is often misty in the summer months.  Graskop is a popular tourist destination and is renown for it's pancake bars and curio shops."

On the menu for tomorrow are the scenic wonders of God's Window, Blyde River Canyon, Three Rondawels and Lisbon Falls.  The video for tomorrow is sure to be epic so please check back!   We plan to get to Kruger tomorrow afternoon!  See you there!

PS: There is also amazing food here.  We ate at a Portuguese/Mozambique restaurant called Canimambo.  It was simply tantalizing.  Pics of our meals are in the video.  One of the owners of the B&B we are staying at tonight, Autumn's Breath, also made dad promise to play the fiddle for her tomorrow.  Looking forward to that show...and its Father's Day tomorrow!  Happy Father's Day to GPop, Gilly, and all the other amazing fathers out there!


Tootles,
Max

Day 10: USA vs Slovenia

USA vs. Slovenia...

By now you know about the exciting USA comeback scoring two goals in the second half.  You also should know about the phantom foul that negated the third game winning goal...watch all the emotion captured in the video, check it out:

The game took place in the historic Ellis Park Stadium.  If you have seen the movie Invictus then you know what I am talking about.  It is the site of the 1995 Rugby World Cup final that the Springboks (South Africa) won against many odds.

On the shuttle to the stadium, G-Pop and I sat next to some more awesome South Africans from outside of Durban:

We met Naz, Emo, Fez, and two more of their friends pictured above.  We ended up exchanging numbers and I hope to stop by and pay them a visit on our way back south after the quarterfinal match we are seeing in July.  Emo, on the right, is a High School Principal and welcomed us to stop by for a tour of their hometown and even spend the night at their home.  Naz graciously gave me his South African Vuvu (check it out in the pic of me and my pops after the game)!  South Africans are so friendly and hospitable.  We also met another great South African athlete.  Fez, in yellow, was shipped off to FC Sao Paulo, Brazil to play soccer several years ago.  He shared stories of playing with/against Brazilian superstars such as Kaka, Luis Fabiano and Roberto Carlos.

Day 9: The stars were aligned for Argentina!

From left to right: Carlos Tevez, Park Ji-Sung, Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona - (Hence the title of the blog entry, clever ay?)

We just got home from one of the most offensive matches of the tournament.  Five goals in one game.  It was pretty amazing.  On top of that, we got to witness Lionel Messi, FIFA World Footballer of the Year work his magic.  Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg is a beautiful looking stadium, not your normal concrete eyesore:

Argentina fans, at least colors, outnumbered Koreans it seemed at least 5-1 in the stadium.  You wouldn't have known that from our seats as we were in a group of Korean fans.  During the Korean National anthem my dad was actually underneath one of their gigantic flags:

Our seats were only 11 rows from the pitch!

First photo taken by a Korean Fan:

Second photo taken by a Korean fan:

The Korean who took our picture made sure we showed them some love.

Can anyone translate this for me? 

Anyways, the game was a blast!  Check out the video, you'll understand what I mean.  I got all the Argentina goals on video:

After the game we picked up D'Arcy Maine, who grew up in our neighborhood in the West End of Hartford, and we headed to Newtown, Joburg for dinner. D'Arcy is in Joburg working for ESPN.  See some of here previous pieces for ESPN.  From the stories and insights into her sports-writing career, I discovered that she eats lunch with Tommy Smith and is bff with Arsen Wenger.

We got to a large fan park with huge screens just as the Mexico - France game got underway.  However, it was so cold, there were barely 100 people there.  Police outnumbered people literally 15 to 1.  It was pretty surreal.  I mean you hear that Joburg has some dodgy areas, but SA def went all out to make peeps feel safe.  At one point, we asked a police woman where a specific restaurant/street was.  She gave us instructions about 100 meters away and around the corner.  We asked if we could park at the fan park and walk over.  She bluntly said: "You probably shouldn't.  People may take advantage of you.  You only want to walk around in Joburg at night if you are following a policeman 10 meters away."  We actually found it more amusing than scary - at least, we didn't share our anxiety with each other.  I mean, come on, the three of us are seasoned gringos from Hartford...we know how to fend for ourselves...right?  You hear stories of car jackings and such, but you can't live your life in a hole.  My dad puts it best: "You can't do anything if it is your time.  If your number is called - and someone approaches your car with an M-16, just give them what they want and get the F*** out of there!" However, I have some additional words of wisdom that my father could have used in Barcelona a couple years ago - "all you CAN do is make sure you don't advertise your wallet's location in a high-traffic pickpocketer area and everything will be okay!"  Unfortunately there are bad people all over the world.  But all the good far outweighs the bad.  So if the opportunity presents itself, get out and travel!

Enough preaching - we grabbed dinner and watched the end of the game.  My dad ordered Mopane Worms.  These worms are a very important protein source for many southern Africans.  I tried some.  They are actually very tasty.  The texture is surprisingly very crunchy.  They took the taste of the sauce they were in.  I described them as a crunchy soy curd - hey I ain't no food critic....yet.  I would definitely order it again, especially after we read in our guide book that it is one of Hilary Clinton's favorite dished.  D'Arcy and I enjoyed some good ole' South African Fillet to supplement the worms.  

The result of the game, Mexico winning 2-0, does not look good for Bafana, Bafana's hopes of getting to the second round.  Thats unfortunate cause SA would be WILD if they advance.  Still we need to keep the faith!  And damn, originally, I did not give enough credit to Ireland's plead to get to SA.  However, the more I watch France, the more I think Ireland deserves it- at least the Irish would have taken better advantage of the opportunity to play here.

Well, we made it in and out alive.  The most sketchy behavior we witnessed was someone offering us a joint after we left the restaurant.  The same guy then directed us along the path to the parking lot.  Even the drug dealers are kind and courteous here...I love it...

Something for all my lady readers:

Christiano Ronaldo Nike advertisement in downtown Joburg.  

Yea, its bigger than Lebron's in Cleveland.  Be jealous King James!

Something for uncle Bob aka Bop.

I heard Maradona saying: "Bop, wanna grab a Cerveza Quilmes after the game?"

Everyone gets lucky sometimes - referring to the Lakers.

Tomorrow - USA versus Slovenia!

I CANNOT WAIT!

"Viva USA"

Keep in touch!

Max

Day 8: Diamonds are forever! Kimberley, Northern Cape

Today we went to the Big Hole right smack in the middle of downtown Kimberley.  The Big Hole is supposedly the largest/deepest man dug whole in the world! They were digging so much because the Big Hole is the site of the discovery of diamonds in a volcanic pipe.  The source of diamonds was previously known, hence the name: Kimberlite (a type of volcanic rock that sometimes contains diamonds.  The volcanic pipes that contain this type of rock and the possibility of diamonds are also named after Kimberley: Kimberlite Pipes.

Here we are on a map:

The hole has a surface of 42 acres and is 463 meters wide.  It was excavated to 240 meters at one point but later filled in.  It has been underground mined to a depth of 1,097 meters.  Here is a picture Gpop took:

The Big Hole is the location of an awesome museum/tourist spot with informational movies and displays as well as a full-scale mockup of what a the old mining town used to look like during the days of the big rush.

The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1866 dictated the history of this town.  Read Wiki if your interested.  To sum it up: De Beers was founded here, Cecil Rhodes (Oxford's Rhodes Scholar ring a bell?) made his fortune here, and it became the Northern Cape Province capital.

Regardless, we had a great time and learned a lot.  After we finished exploring Kimberly, we made our way to Jo-burg.

Check out the video:

Day 7: SNOW DAY!

So...I'm in Africa...what image comes into mind when you think about the climate and the landscape?

Right, thats what I thought...hot...sun...dry...sand...desert...cactus maybe...small shrubs...

...yea we are wrong...today we woke up at Le Jardin Backpackin' to snow capped mountains!

Now Nita and Terrance, the owners of the hostel we slept at, tell me it practically never snows in town like it did last night...and by never they meant maybe once every three years...but yea it did...check out the video if you want more proof.  And I trust Nita and Terrance as both of them are amazing individuals.  In less than an hour Nita explained the history of the neighborhood and town.  She also shared tales of Terrance, her husband, running the local club/bar.  Terrance revisited is SA military past with us.  He even told us some top secret intel about SA former Nuclear program.  On top of it all, my dad says Terrance has the best accent that he has heard yet.  Here is a picture of the two:

Check out some of the shell casings and other SA military weaponry Terrance had laying around:

Anyways, the snow affected our plans for the day...just a little.  We were planning on going to Nieu-Bethesda to the Owl House.  The short story is a crazy widow lived there and filled the house and backyard with some "abstract" "visionary" "outsider" art.  And a lot of it is related to owls.  Seeing as Hartford High's mascot is the owl and my dad is an outside that like art (hahaha) it seemed like the perfect place.  So....after driving through road blocks and policemen telling us different mountain passes were closed, we drove 1+ hours in our tiny Nissan Tida on snow covered dirt roads to Nieu Bethesday...turns out, the staff closed it for the day as the backyard was covered with snow and there is a lot of artwork on the ground that could be tripped on.  After my dad made friends with a local musician who was playing a three string guitar for money...we realized someone forgot our backpack with passports and most importantly FIFA match tickets back in Graaff-Reinet...so we made the trek back to Nita who was faithfully guarding our valuables in hand for us.  With tickets in hand we were then ready to begin our drive to Kimberly in the Northern Cape.  The drive took us through more of the Great Karoo and through some awesome small towns on the 500km+ drive.

You must watch the video to see our snow adventure.  Oh, and I almost forgot.  Because snow is so rare, there were 10s-100s of people pulled over on the side of the road building snowman and having snow ball fights.  It was awesome to share the excitement of so many people playing in snow for the first time. This included busloads of middle school boys who were in Graaff-Reinet for a week-long Rugby tournament.  In the video you can see a bunch of them on the side of the road throwing snowballs!

Oh yeah, check out this photo I took while we stopped off the side of the road to do some star gazing.  My mom's fancy camera has a lot more potential than I am capable of taking advantage of...but I'm pretty proud of my first attempt so please don't burst my bubble!    : p

Port Elizabeth straight to the Karoo!

I'm getting old.  It's 8pm and I'm calling it a night at Le Jardin Backpakin' in Graaff-Reinet.  I can't even stay away to watch "exciting" Italy play Paraguay tonight.  Well, even if I wasn't tired, I don't know if I could stay awake watching the Azzurri.

Enough about me, lets talk about South Africa...

The Karoo is an amazing place and only a drive from Port Elizabeth to Graaff-Reinet does it justice.  I have heard the springtime in this location is even better, but the beginning of the SA winter in the Karoo has left me in awe so I can only imagine.  And to top it off, upon arrival in Graaff-Reinet we took a trip to the Valley of Desolation National Park!  The view from the mountains up their explain Graaff-Reinet's nickname, the Jewel of the Karoo.  The Karoo is a semi-desert region of SA shown in this picture:

I can't describe the beauty of the Karoo with my underdevelopled vocabulary, so please just watch the movie from today!

We left Port Elizabeth this morning headed for Graaff-Reinet (273km):

Before we left Port Elizabeth this morning though, we had a wonderful chat with the owner of the guesthouse that we stayed the second two nights in PE.  Her name is Adrianne.  Turns out, every person we meet in SA is a world class athlete.  If you watch the video, you will see that in her backyard there is a diving board onto a trampoline.  Adrianne is a world class diving judge.  She judged the Olympic diving competitions in both Athens and Beijing.  Now I know the face behind the SA Flag in the diving scores!  After a brief tutorial in the extensive auditing and checks and balances in the life of a diving judge, we found out Adrianne did not attend the olympics alone.  Turns out her older daughter plays for SA for their national field hockey team.  Her brother Gavin, who now lives in Canada was also visiting while we were there.  Wish we had another night to have the drinks that he offered as he was very pleasant and funny.  Before we took off for Graaff-Reinet, our hosts gave us a try of Kudu Biltong, a South African Jerky.  Some of the best I have ever had!

Until manana!

Max

Lions and Elephants and Kudus, OH MY!

Sorry about the delays...internet is sometimes hard to come-by when your driving a several hundred km a day!

Regardless, Gpop and I finally got some time to catch up on some sleep.  We got to a late start this morning (really this morning means early afternoon today).  After some sweet dreams we headed out to Addo Elephant National Park, less than 100km outside of Port Elizabeth.  As we begin to drive again tomorrow, I should start discussing the regions of the country that we are in and their significance.  Addo, as is Port Elizabeth is in the Eastern Cape of South Africa which is broken up into several regions seen in the map:

When Addo Elephant National Park first opened in 1931, there were only 11 elephants left in the park area.  Now there are over 450 elephants in the park, however, we wouldn't have known that, as we only saw one from 2-3km away (check out the video).  I was thinking that they are probably all in Florida right now for SA's winter, as it is fairly chilly right now.

Another interesting fact, Addo National Park is home to the largest population of flightless dung beetles, however, again, we wouldn't have known that as we saw exactly zero dung beetles...but again, we weren't sifting through piles of elephant poop, so we may not have been looking hard enough.

I saw a bunch of animals for the first time ever, and many others for the first time in their natural habitat...

One of the most common sitings is the great Kudu, whose horns, I believe is the motivation of the infamous vuvuzela and a common source of Shofars! (I'm waiting for mighty Joe to arrive to team up and become Vuvuzela blowing super hooligans, as Gpop remains content sporting his vuvuplugs)

I could explain in words our first little self led safari, however, I believe this video can do a much better job...check out the amazing views and sweet animals that found us (as we had NO idea what we were doing) along our adventure:

Hasta Manana!

Max

USA, USA, USA

So guess who was browsing FIFA.com this morning for match tickets?  Your probably right, I WAS!  We managed to nab two tickets to USA vs. Slovenia at Ellis Park in Joburg for Thursday right before they sold out!  Look forward to videos and pics from that fine affair....I am definitely looking forward to it!!!




-It is impossible to watch that video too many times...thanks Aaron Strick!

Support for Team USA from South Africa!

Jacq, the Braii master supreme, checked in from Port Elizabeth this morning.  TEAM USA definitely has his support!

"Our friends from 'The Land of the Brave & the Home of the Free' - As I said to Jim: ' Thank God that the Russians did not win the Cold War'  Ronald Regan out stared the Ruskies & 'Evil Empire' & the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. VIVA USA!"              

-Jacq